1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capturing apparatus, an image capturing method, an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and a computer readable medium storing a program. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image capturing apparatus and an image capturing method for capturing an image, an image processing apparatus and an image processing method for processing a captured image, and a computer readable medium storing a program for the image capturing apparatus and the image processing apparatus.
2. Related Art
A technique for automatically enlarging a diaphragm aperture in accordance with the selection of soft photography has been known as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent No. 2526826. Moreover, a camera including an object lens having PSF (point spread function) larger than two times of a pitch of a light receiving element array has been known as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Publication of a Translation of an International Application 2006-519527.
Like techniques as described in Japanese Patent No. 2526826 and Japanese Publication of a Translation of an International Application 2006-519527, since a pixel value spatially averaged is obtained if the image of a subject is captured to become dim, the maximum value of brightness may fall down and the minimum value of brightness may rise compared to the case that an in-focus image is usually captured. In this case, bit values may not be effectively used in some cases when pixel values are expressed with the same dynamic range as that during usual photography.